1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a debugging method and related computer system, and more particularly, to a debugging method and related computer system which do not require additional hardware and are capable of obtaining complete execution log data to perform debugging.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When computer devices crash or are not able to boot normally, related peripherals would fail to work. Thus, various debugging methods are employed to discover the cause of the malfunction, to facilitate subsequent recovery procedures. For example, the prior art usually determines a cause of malfunction to locate the malfunction by checking power-on self test (POST) codes on port 80 (address 0x80), or using serial-out methods to monitor system operation processes. However, when abnormalities occur in computer devices, POST codes on port 80 only display information at a certain interruption point, and do not provide sufficient debugging information. Serial-out methods are often restricted by interface transmission rates and cause system delay (since processors have far exceeding processing rates), resulting in data loss of the debugging information.
Another conventional debugging method is to trace the cause of system abnormalities by tracking execution log data recorded by a Basic input/output system (BIOS). However, related execution log data cannot be completely preserved when the computer devices fail to complete a boot procedure. Especially, execution log data during actual abnormal operations cannot be stored, and thus it is difficult to determine the cause of occurrence of boot error, and to implement debugging procedures accordingly.
On the other hand, the aforementioned conventional methods all need to be implemented with extra hardware, which poses a major inconvenience for computer device developers and designers, and also raises manufacturing costs and system design complexity.